


Wrap All Your Arms Around Me

by 27dragons



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Families of Choice, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 13:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30022776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons
Summary: Tony got the team captured by airfolk, and he’s feeling lower than chum. Good thing Bucky’s here to support him.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 168
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2021, Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	Wrap All Your Arms Around Me

**Author's Note:**

> This fic fills squares for the Tony Stark Bingo and Bucky Barnes Bingo. See end note for header.

Bucky found Tony at the sandbar, listening to the sirens call to the distant vessels of the airfolk. He hadn’t bothered to camouflage, or Bucky would probably have swum right past him.

Still, Bucky approached cautiously. “Hey, bubble,” he greeted, still several tails away. “Mind if I join you?”

Tony glanced at him and curled his arms in tightly. “They send you after me? Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything crazy.”

“Well, that depends on your definition of crazy,” Bucky drawled, dragging himself up into the shallower water. He propped his arm on the soft sand and rested his head on his hand. “Some would say that this group of ours is pretty crazy, just for existing.” Conventional wisdom had it that the various tribes of the merfolk could barely tolerate each other for the annual moots and gatherings; forming a school of mixed heritage should have been folly -- but they _worked_ , damn it all.

Tony didn’t even smile. “Do they want me out?”

“What? Why would they want you out?”

Tony’s arms writhed under him, practically twisting themselves into knots. His skin flashed a whole coral’s worth of colors. “You don’t have to pretend,” he snapped. “It was my fault. I’m the one who got us captured.”

“And you helped us get free again,” Bucky reminded him.

“But now they know we’re here. They’ll be looking for us.” His eyes were on the airfolk vessel, barely visible now on the horizon.

“And we’ll deal with that when we need to,” Bucky said, because it would be useless to deny it. “Angelfish, no one blames you.”

“Of course they do.” Tony’s skin rippled with colors again. Bucky tried to find hope in that: at least Tony wasn’t hiding from him, or pretending everything was fine. 

“...Maybe a little. But they know it was an accident. They’re not mad enough to kick you off the team.”

“What about you?”

“What about me, angelfish?”

“How mad are you?”

Bucky hummed thoughtfully. “A little. But I’ve had worse, you know?”

“Sure, great. Being captured by airfolk wasn’t as bad as being tortured by the hydra. That makes me feel so much better.”

Bucky reached out and snared the nearest of Tony’s arms, which was all he could reach without beaching himself. Tony let him unwind it and curl his hand against the suckers, feeling the gentle tug of them at his skin. The arm loosened enough to wind its tip around Bucky’s knuckles in an absentminded sort of caress. “It wasn’t great,” Bucky admitted. “And I wish the sirens had gotten more of them before they managed to get away. But we’re all free again. No one was badly hurt--”

“Clint lost a _leg_!”

“And he’ll be an utter moray about it until it regenerates, but it’s not life-threatening. It’s not even going to slow him down all that much. No one is _nearly_ as mad about what happened as _you_ are, Tony. Cut yourself a little slack. It was one mistake.”

“One mistake is all you need to end up as orca-bait,” Tony mumbled.

“Not when you stick by your school,” Bucky countered, tugging a little more at Tony’s arm, until the octomer uncoiled enough to sidle a little closer. “Look, they’re going to come back. Can’t change that, now. I’ll feel a lot better about it if we’re all swimming together. Come on back, huh? We’re gonna need you to help figure out how to keep the airfolk from finding us. And my tail is drying out.” Bucky splashed his tailfin a little in emphasis, trying to scoop up some water to alleviate the itchy feeling of the skin under his scales going dry.

Tony’s flinched and twisted around to examine Bucky’s tail. “Neptune’s beard,” he swore, “why didn’t you say something sooner? Come on, we need to get you back in the water!” He boiled down off the sandbar and wrapped three arms around Bucky’s tail, between the secondary and caudal, and started dragging Bucky back into deeper water.

Bucky could have pushed himself back into the deeper water on his own easily enough, even with only one arm, but he let Tony do it. As soon as he was swimming free, though, he caught Tony around the waist, pulling them together until more than half of Tony’s arms were twined around him, the suckers pulling gently at his skin like a hundred tiny kisses. “It’s all gonna be okay, lionfish. We’ll do a little strategizing, and then you and me can go find a nice quiet kelp bed, yeah?”

Tony’s skin flared with color again, this time in patterns that Bucky knew were far from unhappy. “Yeah, that... we can do that.” Behind them, the airfolk vessel had disappeared, and the sirens had fallen silent.

The airfolk would return, Bucky knew. But they’d have come anyway. He’d learned that during his time as the hydra’s prisoner. But with his new, strange school around him and his octomer mate at his side, he thought they might just stand a chance.

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Wrap All Your Arms Around Me  
> by @27dragons  
> Cards 4027 (TSB) / B024 (BBB)  
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30022776  
> Square: R2 - Merpeople (TSB) / S2 - Families of Choice (BBB)  
> Ship: Winteriron  
> Rating: G  
> Tags/Warnings: AU: Merfolk, Families of Choice, mental health issues  
> Summary: Tony got the team captured by airfolk, and he’s feeling lower than chum. Good thing Bucky’s here to support him.  
> Wordcount: 842


End file.
